- Is Al Haymon going to take over the world?
The adviser is hugely influential in the sport thanks to his close, and highly successful, relationship with Floyd Mayweather. His stable of fighters includes many of the best in the sport and last year he also signed some of Britain’s star world champions, Carl Frampton, Lee Selby and James DeGale. His most startling innovation in 2015 was launching Premier Boxing Champions, a series that brought boxing back to free-to-air channels in America. While many of the match ups were underwhelming, and many of the boxers previously unknown, it did produce some good fights, Frampton and Selby for instance had harder than expected tests in the States, DeGale had two exciting world title scraps, with Abner Mares versus Leo Santa Cruz probably being the best pairing. The big question for 2016 is how the PBC will develop. Will it be establish itself in the minds of casual sports fans? Will it be able to stage more memorable fights and will it produce the next generation of boxing stars?
- Will the heavyweight division unify?
Whilst Wladimir Klitschko has been a great champion, whose accomplishments merit great respect, the new age for the heavyweight division, heralded by Tyson Fury’s victory over Wladimir in November is going to add a new layer of intrigue to the sport. The big question is will we get a unified world heavyweight champion this year. Fury has been forced to shed one of the three belts he won, Vyacheslav Glazkov and Charles Martin box for that on January 16 and we have to see whether Deontay Widler, the WBC titlist is going to step forward and take on one of the other champions.
- Who will star at the Olympic Games?
The Olympic Games so often produces the next wave of talent to blaze a trail through the professional ranks. We’ve seen London 2012 gold medallist Vasyl Lomachenko win a world title and Olympic super-heavyweight Anthony Joshua impress, and become a real draw, on the way to winning the British title in December. Who will follow in their footsteps? Ireland has some real talent on its hands, look out for Michael Conlan and Paddy Barnes among others. Who will carry American hopes? Can Shakur Stevenson for instance step up successfully from Youth level, or will Claressa Shields become a two-time Olympic gold medallist and get the recognition she deserves? Will Nicola Adams and Katie Taylor also be able to fend off their challengers?
- How will boxing tackle performance enhancing drugs?
Every has sport has to look at how it faces the problem of performance enhancing drugs but especially boxing, given the risks that its athletes can face. Having diverse governing bodies doesn’t help when it comes to taking a co-ordinated approach to tackling doping in boxing. Strides though can be made in testing, catching and administering proper punishment to cheats. Will we see progress made in 2016 though?
- Will Floyd Mayweather come out of retirement?
Can Mayweather resist trying to break Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record? He only needs one more win to do that. He will surely never make as much in a single fight as he did against Manny Pacquiao and Floyd was adamant he was retiring. But will he enjoy remaining on the sidelines and will a fight emerge that will be tempting enough to induce him to endure the rigours of one more training camp?
- Will Saul Alvarez fight Gennady Golovkin?
It would be the biggest fight of 2016. The brutal Kazakh has declared his intention to harvest every belt going in the middleweight division. But the Mexican star has insisted he has no fear of Golovkin and the WBC are pressing for the fight to happen. Both though can take tune up bouts and another potential drawback is that Alvarez is yet to fight at middleweight. He might need more time to grow into the division. Plus, after Canelo’s thrilling win over Miguel Cotto, his popularity and earning potential are on a high. Golovkin presents a real threat to that and deal could be hard to reach.
